Treating Winter Injuries 



301 



this wood-production is probably never more needed than 

 in winter-injured trees, for it tends to renew the vitaUty 

 of the tree. 



Often the winter-injury does not appear at once on 

 the surface, but the wood and interior bark are discolored, 

 often so much so as 

 to lead the observer 

 to think that the 

 tree is dead. But 

 such trees may 

 fully recover. Very 

 much depends on 

 the subsequent 

 treatment of the 

 trees. Fig. 108 

 shows the body of 

 a young plum tree 

 (in longitudinal and 

 cross-wise sections) 

 that was frozen 

 black in a severe 

 winter. It was heavily pruned the following spring and 

 in the fall had made a ring of bright new wood, amply 

 sufficient to maintain the tree in perfect health for a long 

 life. This appearance is common in nursery stock the 

 year following a very hard winter, but such trees may not 

 be permanently injured. They are to be pruned mode- 

 rately, and if they are young and have much reserve 

 vitahty, they may be headed-back heavily. Sometimes 

 heavy heading-back does more harm than good. These 

 are cases in which the entire tree is old or otherwise weak, 

 and when the plant seems to need the stimulus of all its 

 buds to bring out the feeble hfe still left to it. Fig. 109 



Fig. ^109. Recuperation of a winter-injured tree, 

 moderately pruned in April. 



